Why has no one asked the question of just HOW... Israel survived total destruction by God under the Old Covenant, since they couldn't keep His law?
God's grace has always existed. God established the fleshy priesthood under the Old Covenant to make atonement for the sins of the people after they broke His law. His establishing of the sons of Aaron and Levi as priests for the people certainly was about God's grace then also. Not every sin was punishable by death under the Old Covenant. And that's how many of the people of Israel survived the Old Covenant system requirements to keep God's law. The priests had to first cleanse by animal sacrifice their own sins before they could be mediators for the sins of the people. It also involved various ritual washings, giving of firstfruits, strict observance of holy days, appearing before God in Jerusalem certain periods of the year, etc.
When Christ Jesus brought the New Covenant by His Blood Sacrifice, He became... The Mediator of a better Covenant, showing God's Grace applied in a different way, and to other peoples besides His chosen Israel. His fulfilling of the law never meant the end of all of God's laws, but the replacing of all the Old Covenant religious ritual laws and blood ordinances (Col.2; Eph.2:14-15). Instead, Christ became... those things, even as our High Priest and Mediator for us directly to The Father, ending the need of a fleshy priest system and fleshy religious ritual that was given under the Old Covenant.
God's laws still exist to define sin, as others have mentioned. Our Lord Jesus Christ is our Mediator to The Father in covering our sins, if we repent to Him. The Book of Hebrews describes in detail those changes by Christ Jesus per The New Covenant.
In 1 Cor.5:7 Apostle Paul also reveals some of this, when he declared Christ Jesus as 'our Passover sacrificed for us'. Under the Old Covenant Passover, there was a requirement of animal sacrifice, keeping of certain feast days, eating bitter herbs as a remembrance, and clearing leaven out of one's home. God's Passover to be kept forever by Israel did not end, but HOW it was to be kept DID change through Christ Jesus by The New Covenant. Christ Himself became Israel's, and us Gentile's Lamb Sacrifice in maintaining God's Passover forever. We no longer have to sacrifice, nor keep to certain feast days for that, nor eat bitter herbs, nor clear our houses of leaven, for those were of the Old Covenant religious ritual system.
This is why under The New Covenant through Christ Jesus, we are to become priests in a spiritual new way through Him. One of the main duties of leaders in Christ's Churches is to teach us how to become priests, so as to reign with our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not... to have yet another fleshy priesthood over us serving like the Old Covenant Levitical system as mediators for us. We are to go to The Father directly through our One Mediator Jesus Christ. Because many will not heed that, they are still treating many leaders in the Churches as if they are the new Levitical priesthood, thinking they can only come to Christ Jesus through them. And for this cause, some Church leaders are haughty and puffed up, thinking they themselves have the Power to save one's soul (see Ezek.13 about this). Their job is to bring us... to Christ Jesus, and to teach us His Ways, so we can learn how to become His priests.
